One for my Baby and one more for the road
by mabelreid
Summary: One Shot Song fic. Post Love Runs Cold Danny drowns his sorrows after Lindsay rejects him.


-1A/n I know I'm supposed to be working on "Facing the Demon" for CM but I was bored at work yesterday and this story for Danny popped into my mind. I hate the way the show handles his relationship with Lindsay so I thought I write about Danny after her rejection of him in Love Runs Cold. The song referenced is One for My Baby (and one more for the road) as sung by Frank Sinatra. I was listening to it and thought that Danny and "old blue eyes" go together like rainy days and chick flicks. This is my first CSI NY fic so please be kind in your reviews.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of CSI NY and do not intend copy right infringement. My characters are my own.

_**Its quarter to three,  
There's no one in the place cept you and me.**_

_**So set em up Joe.**_

_**I got a little story I think you oughtta know.**_

Detective Danny Messer entered the Lucky Strike alone. He was running away from his friends, his coworkers and most of all **_her. _**She had said no to him, Danny Messer. He still couldn't believe it.

Dropping down on a stool he glanced at Joe, bartender and owner of the Lucky Strike. Joe knew Danny well as he knew most of the CSI's. He also knew Lindsay, she'd been in the place several times over the last year and he found her to be too sweet and cute for a police detective. Joe would know he'd been on the job for twenty five years. The bar was his retirement.

"The usual Detective Messer? Joe asked pushing a rag around on the always spotless bar.

The mahogany wood that made up the bar was his pride and joy, woe to the man cop or not that dared spill his drink.

"Naw, not this time, bourbon on the rocks doubles with a chaser." Danny said.

"You want to talk about it, son?"

"Naw, not here to talk, I'm hear to drink."

Danny could hide the pain in his heart from all the others but, Joe Scalero had been a damn good detective in his time and he wasn't buying the younger man's act. He put the drink in front of Danny. He drank it down as though he believed drinking was about to be banned. He called out to Joe.

"Give me another one Joe."

"Whoa Messer, the bourbon's not going anywhere, slow down or I'll hafta roll ya outta here.

"I'm paying ya man, give me another one." Danny repeated his accent thickening. Joe put second drink in front of the young detective and watched his eyes.

Joe wasn't stupid, Danny didn't drink this way he looked like he'd already made a stop to another bar and was on his way to serious inebriation. He moved off and made a quick phone call before returning to watch the young detective.

He'd been sniffing around Detective Monroe or Montana as he called her. Joe assumed it was a passing phase that Messer would charm her into his bed and that would be the end of it. Just as he'd seen the young man do with a lot of other women. It hadn't worked out that way. Some thing about this cowgirl was different, than all the other women. He'd watched the two of them fall in love over the last year. Everyone had seen it but the two of them. Actually he had a lot of money riding on when they would realize it. Maybe he'd just lost that bet.

As for Danny he'd come in to finish drowning his sorrows and erase her smile, her eyes, her cute button nose from his mind_. How could she say no to him, Danny Messer self proclaimed heart throb and all around great guy, it just wasn't possible, was it? Had he become ugly all of the sudden, was he selfish, arrogant, rotten to the core? _He said to himself.

"Ya gotta problem with a girl Danny?" Joe said in his quiet even manner.

He'd been selling drinks to cops and others in the "Lucky Strike" for ten years and there wasn't much he hadn't seen or heard, especially from cops. And this cop looked like his heart had been body slammed into dust.

"Naw there's no problem with me, according to Montana. She doesn't want to be in a relationship right now. She has "issues." He said sarcastically making quotation marks with his hands.

_**We're drinking my friend  
To the end of a brief episode.**_

_**So make it one for my baby.**_

_**And one more for the road.**_

"Did you ever think that maybe she just doesn't like you? Not every girl has to fall at your feet Messer."

Oh yeah the thought had occurred to him, but not for the last few weeks. He admitted to himself, but not out loud that his teasing of her in the beginning had been a reaction to Mac bringing her in to take Aiden's place. She was this young hot shot detective from Montana that had caught Mac's eye. He'd had to make her pay for that even thought she didn't deserve it.

Then something changed, he began to admire her. She was absolutely single minded in the lab, she was vulnerable and she was beautiful. She successfully avoided falling into his bed and that had frustrated him more that he would ever admit to anyone. It also made him love her even more.

_**I know the routine  
Put another nickel in that there machine  
I'm feeling so bad  
Wont you make the music easy and sad**_

"Come on Messer talk to me; tell me how the great Danny Messer gets his heart broken?" Joe said

"Who said my heart's broken man, it ain't no big deal. I mean she's a nice girl right?"

"Yeah Messer she's nice."

He spoke about how they met at the zoo and he'd first called her Montana.

"Ya know Joe I never knew for the longest time that she liked it when I called her that stupid name. Everyone else knew, why not me? _"Obviously because I'm blind and clueless." _

"I must be the dumbest son of a bitch around. Say did I ever tell you I showed her the best view of the city from the ferry dock? She wasn't impressed." All of this he said out loud, he thought to himself.

"_Hey Montana you ever seen a view like it, beats the wheat fields."_

"_Have you ever seen a wheat field?" She'd walked away and he said under his breath._

"_What's to see its wheat?" _

He'd been sarcastic then but secretly he thought he'd love to see those wheat fields if he were standing next to her.

"So the girl's not impressed by the New York skyline, who cares. Joe said he wasn't that impressed by it himself, it was home and that was enough for him.

**_I could tell you a lot  
But you gotta to be true to your code  
So make it one for my baby  
And one more for the road_**

"Yeah she knew how to surprise you. Do you know I watched that girl eat a fried tarantula? Can you believe it?" Danny said with pride.

"You kiddin me man, a spider?" Joe said, with a disgusted look.

"Nope!"

Danny finished his drink and picked up the second chaser as thoughts of that day ran through his mind. It had been gross and also a strange turn on.

_**You'd never know it  
But buddy I'm a kind of poet  
And I've got a lot of things I wanna say  
And if I'm gloomy, please listen to me  
Till its all, all talked away**_

"She was great when Aiden died. She worked for her like she'd known her all her life.

"She's a cop, she does the job." Joe said back to polishing the counter. It was after midnight now and the joint wasn't jumping.

"Ya know I think I figured it out Joe."

"Wadja figure out Messer, the meaning of life?"

"Naw man, I figured out when you know, when I first loved her. Danny said his eyes were suspiciously bright. It was after the bombing a few weeks back. I saw the blood on her face and I wanted to forget everything even Mac and Flack. I wanted to take her to the hospital myself, but she wouldn't go. She could only think of the guys trapped inside. She's a sweetheart. _What would I have done if she had been killed that day?" _He thought to himself.

"Like I said she does the job, she's a stand up kind of gal and pretty too." Joe commented.

Yeah she's beautiful, do ya know what she did Joe? She did the dumbest and most brave thing I ever saw. She saved a hostages life."

When she'd offered to go under cover during the Hollies case he wanted to throw her over his shoulder and carry her to his car and drive away as fast as he could in the opposite direction to hell with the consequences. He'd seen determination in her eyes along with the fear of the diamond smugglers as she listened to the instructions for the flash bomb.

The memory of that single event came back and washed over him like a tidal wave. Her face as she went into the hotel. Listening to the man question her identity.

"_Who are you?" _

When he had seen she wasn't one of the Hollies.

"_Try again"_

His own voice cracking

'"_She's been made"_

The team running for the hotel suite, his own heart pounding as he ran his brain screaming

"_Faster Messer, she's counting on you, oh God please don't let him hurt her, and if he does I'll kill him with my bare hands. _

Then they were there and he couldn't see her through the smoke. His team was shouting and subduing the smugglers. He could only shout for her.

"_Lindsay"_

"_Danny"_

There she was she was okay and her pulled her into his arms crushing her small body to his. He loved her more than he'd loved anyone in his whole life. He hadn't wanted to let her go ever.

He thought it was okay then. He thought they could explore what was happening to them, but then she said that day she didn't want what he wanted. He tried to be understanding while his hear shattered into a million pieces.

**_Well, that's how it goes  
And Joe I know you're gettin anxious to close  
So thanks for the cheer  
I hope you didn't mind  
My bending your ear._**

"Gimme another Joe." Danny demanded he wasn't even close to being as drunk as he wanted.

"No, you've had enough detective." A voice sounded behind him. A voice he'd learned not to question when it had the tone it had now.

"Why don't ya join me Mac stead of telling me no." Danny said with out turning around.

"I don't think so, but what I am going to do is take you home. Where are your keys?"

"Come on Mac, just one more for da road!"

"No, give me your keys."

Danny whirled around stumbling as he turned and nearly fell into Mac's arms. How much had he drunk? He didn't know, had lost count.

"How many has he had Joe?" Mac asked.

"Two double bourbons with chasers. I'm damn glad to see you Mac. Get him the hell outta here before he decides to do something stupid.

Mac pulled the keys out of Danny's pants pocket and passed them to Joe. "Keep these will you, he'll get his car tomorrow. He pulled Danny into the street and bundled him into his car over the younger man's protests that he could drive just fine.

_**But this torch that I found  
Its gotta be drowned  
Or it soon might explode  
So make it one for my baby  
And one more for the road**_

Mac hauled him into his apartment and then watched as the younger man passed out on his couch. He pulled off his shoes and threw a blanket over him. He was angry he'd had to bring Danny home in that state and he was going to see to it that those two worked out their problems. He wanted peace and efficiency restored to the lab.

**9 am the next morning**.

"Aw right already, jeez can't a person have a hangover in peace?" Danny yanked open the door and stood gaping at the person on the other side.

"Aren't you going to let me in Messer? Lindsay said.

Fin


End file.
